The Secret Lives of Color

As someone who studied history and who loves color, this book is the perfect hybrid of color with depth! Not only are there several unique shades of colors (it goes way beyond ROYGBIV), but the origins and historical context of them were fascinating!

It really helped me learn so much more about color. The biggest takeaway is that while sometimes people tend to view color as something for children, this proves historically how great of an impact it has on humans.

As someone who is obsessed with colour, and I mean OBSESSED, diving into this book felt like a colourful dream come true.

Not only does this book delve into so many different colours it also shares stories about how they relate to cultures around the world, and it was so fascinating to learn about. Take my favourite colour, for example, orange. It blew my mind to find out where the word originated and when the term was first used as a colour.

I felt like I was soaking in knowledge at the turn of every page. I can’t tell you… show more.

If you are interested in the history and stories behind the colors that we see daily, this book is for you.

I loved discovering that gold is the color of desire, when and how shades of blue were first discovered, and what is mixed to create blue pigment. Modern stories of punk rock pink, to the first colors painted on the walls of caves.

It is a fascinating read that you can pick up whenever you are curious about the colors in your world. 

I fell in love with this book the moment I picked up a copy in a book store. While it is not exactly about infographics, it tackles an aspect that is crucial to creating successful and arresting visualizations: color. This topic has a wide scientific dimension (think perception, think chemistry), but the notion of color is also intertwined with intense aesthetic experiences. Kassia St. Clair combines both with a trove of historical stories about scientists, artists, and other aficionados on the hunt for intricate shades such as Mummy or Chrome Yellow. A highly inspiring read, a beautiful book, and an… show more.

Despite the fact that color is everywhere around us (or perhaps because it’s everywhere around us), we often take it for granted. But every color has a long and layered history. In The Secret Lives of Color, Kassia St. Clair offers brief, beautiful, and fascinating histories of seventy-five different colors. For example, she explores the “curious case of the yellow that vanished,” a.k.a., lead-tin yellow. She explains how the daring 1920s socialite Daisy Fellowes introduced “shocking pink” to the world after being inspired by a glittering diamond. And she exposes how St. Patrick’s blue became the legendary Kelly green.